Linda Norgrove dedicated her life to helping others, not least in Afghanistan, a country that she loved.

Born in the village of Altnaharra in Sutherland in 1974, Norgrove grew up on a croft on the isle of Lewis before being educated at the University of Aberdeen.

Her taste for travel to the developing world had been fostered by her parents, John, a civil engineer, and her mother, Lorna, who would take Linda and her younger sister, Sofie, on regular long trips abroad. After school she worked for a year at a trotting horse stable in Belgium before travelling around Spain and France. A keen cyclist, she undertook two long and adventurous trips, cycling over 4,000 miles across the US in 1994 and a year later for three and a half months through China, then from Lhasa in Tibet across the Himalayas to Kathmandu in Nepal.

It was perhaps inevitable her later studies and research would focus on environmentally sustainable development, which she would pursue in further studies in Mexico and research in Uganda before joining the United Nations in Afghanistan.

After a spell working in Laos, Linda Norgrove returned to Afghanistan in February this year as a regional director for Development Alternatives Inc, where she was working when kidnapped. So fond was she of Afghanistan and its people that last year, while still working in Laos, she returned to the country for her holidays, trekking for three weeks in the north.

On her return Norgrove, who spoke Dari, a form of Persian, was in charge of a project designed to persuade local farmers to abandon poppy production and move to legal crops, which required operating in the communities where poppies are grown. A large part of the effort was focused on rebuilding local infrastructure, part of a programme seen as key to denying the Taliban its support among the Afghan population.

The project had been described as a model of success – in large part, said DAI, because of her. Based in Jalalabad, the 36-year-old supervised reconstruction programmes in the eastern region of Afghanistan funded by the US government.

DAI's president, James Boomgard, said: "This is devastating news. We are saddened beyond words by the death of a wonderful woman whose sole purpose in Afghanistan was to do good – to help the Afghan people achieve a measure of prosperity and stability in their everyday lives as they set about rebuilding their country.

"Linda loved Afghanistan and cared deeply for its people, and she was deeply committed to her development mission. She was an inspiration to many of us here at DAI and she will be deeply missed."

Another long-time colleague and friend of Linda's at DAI said: "Intellectually she was so sound, but she was also highly practical and always calm – a rare combination in this environment."